Click here to go to the next issue
Highlights Home Page | Receive the Nondual Highlights each day
#2229- Saturday, August 13, 2005 - Editor: Jerry Katz
This issue features a selection of posts from the newly reopened Nonduality Salon list. Aly, Ben, Vicki, and Xan are highlighted. Vicki's probably thinking, "Now that explains the bold yellow steak running down my body." No, I didn't literally "highlight" you.
--Jerry
Aly
I would like to share a couple of pieces of writing. To put things in a little bit of context, I work at a hospital...checking people into the lab, greeting the patients and ordering their tests in the computer. Anyway, here goes:
I have a little red glass heart a friend gave me awhile back, a pretty thing that plays nicely in the light. Lately I have taken to putting it on my desk at work...as a prayer...a reminder. It is a reminder to be kind. It is a reminder to stop in the blur of the moment and listen to the language of compassion speaking through that moment. That is what enriches my work life. To do the simple work I have been entrusted to do accurately and efficiently is important to me. Ultimately, that is what the patients and the hospital need me to do. I also want to remember to take a moment see the human beings with whom I interact, because without that the work is rote and meaningless. If there's one complaint my co-workers have with me it seems to be "Relax, Aly!" (My stress begins to stress them also.) Some compassion for myself is called for also...some trust in the flow of life. At night I put the heart away in a small red silk bag, for two reasons: to help keep honest people honest, and so that I will have to consciously take it out again in the morning...and pray anew.
~ ~ ~
I guess I am still waiting for something deeper...something more. All of it is here...everything is here. I'm just not always sure I can reach it. And I am already "it" without trying. Circles upon circles. I wish I had a better memory for faces and names. That would help me at work. I could connect with people better that way. I feel so at a loss, sometimes. I want to reach out to people but they become these nameless, faceless spirits in front of me...and then moving on...forgotten. I am an idiot. Yesterday I called one of the lab employees to my station as if she were a patient, "I can help you right here." She was out of her lab coat and I didn't recognize her for a moment. I felt so stupid. "There's no help for me," she responded. At least she had a sense of humor about it.
So stupid. I feel lost in a sea of humanity sometimes. To touch the shore of any island is a blessing. Recognition, that warm spark, is a blessing. I sometimes feel I have so much work to do that I despair of being able to finish it in my lifetime. I will never be done with myself. And I don't really know how to go about doing the work. It's like that old thing about pulling one's self up by the bootstraps. I can't teach myself. Learning sometimes seems to happen...by what grace I do not know. So here I am, this ship lost at sea, that now and then finds it's way to a welcoming shore, where I am rested and nourished on my way. Am I nourishment and a rest, sometimes, too? I hope so. Sometimes the sea seems so vast...so empty...so wide and lonely. We do all our daily "stuff", not really sure where we're going...not really knowing where the journey ends. Ships that pass in the night...sometimes comforted by a one another's "Helloooooo" across the darkness. Sometimes I am content to be sailing alone...yes, that is the truth. Sometimes I am fine not to run across another ship...to look out and see only the stars and the water...that dark water...for miles and miles and miles. I am happy, for awhile, to blend into the whole thing and become the salt air...and to breathe myself; yes, to breathe myself. I like the paradox of that. And then I see the lights of a ship in the distance and think, yes...that's nice too. Metaphors...metaphors. I wonder if I will ever be able to write in a more clear way about my life...to touch it more directly. But then, does it matter? Do the details of this life matter at all? I'm not saying they don't. I'm saying I don't know.
Ben Hassine
This site has lots of interesting articles, scriptures, poetry and so forth. I will upload it to the links-section as well: another non-dual perspective. http://hjem.get2net.dk/civet-cat/index.htm
http://www.dublab.com Music. Or ‘positive music’ as it is ‘dubbed’ on the site. Click <dubstream> for streaming music
http://www.ciolek.com/wwwvl-zen.html Zen virtual library—scroll down for table of contents.
http://wanderling.tripod.com/40test.html Here is an ‘online dharma course’ presented by the Wanderling. Maybe the site is known by many here. I actually ordered the book ‘The Razor’s Edge’ by Somerset Maugham and am reading it during the nightshifts at work—as far as duties allow it. Reading the book (or watching the movie (another example of a non-dual film?)) is part of the online curriculum. In my spare time I love to browse his site and there is a wealth of information to be found there. Maybe now I have found the opportunity to thank Mr. Wanderling for his extensive efforts in putting the site together and maintaining it. I appreciate the site and have enjoyed for quite some time now!
Vicki and Xan
I think all of us are enjoying the
reopening of the salon. I know I am. There is
something about this list that goes on. Like, where did we
all go when Jerry closed shop when he did? I opened a small
list, but it is a quiet little pond. This is the
ocean. Here we have a chance to do anything we can to put
enjoyment into the waters.
We can launch big ships or tiny little toy boats....doesn't
matter. I remember going to Daytona Beach every year when I
was growing up. Catching the first glimpse of the ocean was
so heady. I loved going into the Woolworth's almost as
much. It smelled different than the one in my
hometown. It had things like orange blossom honey, plastic
rafts, flip flops and bathing caps. It just smelled
wonderful.
So here we share with more people. I was rereading Women
Who Run with the Wolves this afternoon. The author talks
about how important the creative spark is and what we must do to
nourish it or to call it home. Talking to others about
one's inner life is interesting. I have just been widowed
for less than eight months....and I don't know who I am anymore,
based on the old definitions. I am both feistier and
dumber. I find that my energy has gathered more around the
Self and less around the world. I have less to write
about, now that Bob has gone on.
Speaking personally, I wish more people would write about their
lives instead of just throwing out one intellectual statement
after another. Every day I eat too much chocolate, watch
too much TV and think too many anxious thoughts. Being on
the path does not mean one has it knocked, by a long shot.
Well, that's my two cents. Anybody got three?
Love, Vicki
My life is pretty
solitary, except that I feel folks I love close to
me even though they aren't here. These days I am reviving
the grass
and rose bushes who, along with me, got quite faint from the heat
this summer. Mostly I just breathe. That's my path
--- this breath.
Xan
